


Upon the Lips of Dying Men

by UrbanAmazon



Category: Terminator
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-31
Updated: 2010-12-31
Packaged: 2017-10-14 06:55:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/146594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UrbanAmazon/pseuds/UrbanAmazon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He'll find us, won't he?" - An exploration of Kyle's thoughts during the movie's existing scene.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Upon the Lips of Dying Men

**Author's Note:**

> "Truth sits upon the lips of dying men." - Matthew Arnold.
> 
> Dialogue from The Terminator screenplay by James Cameron & Gale Anne Hurd.

"He'll find us, won't he?"

I had thought ... no, I had hoped that she had been asleep. She needed it, desperately. The scant hour or so of peace that she had found underneath the bridge was a poor balance to the amount of stress that she had suffered in the past day. She was physically and mentally exhausted, driven far beyond any limit she had known, but part of me knew that I was little better. Force of will was the only thing keeping me from breaking at this point, but I felt even that start to fade at the utter hopelessness in her voice. The bandages around my arm and hand had long numbed the wounds they covered, but the thought of her giving up ... and the answer that I had to give ... it felt as if the scars that marked my skin had been torn anew.

"Probably."

I knew that I didn't lie as I said it. I had never lied to her, though now I wished I could. I wished I could tell her that she was free, I wished I could tell her that this was all a dream, that this would all fade away the second she fell into a peaceful slumber, but I couldn't do that. The very fact that I was there killed those wishes before they could be born. Words could never change that.

And I owed it to John. To her. Lies were not an option.

She rose from the bed and sat behind me on the other chair, her shoulders slumping in exhaustion as she stared at her hands in her lap. "And it'll never be over, will it?"

I couldn't answer that. I wanted to lie to her so badly that I couldn't speak. I tried to hide the shaking in my hands by parting the curtain slightly and scanning the silent night outside. My silence was answer enough.

I heard her try to laugh. The sound was short, hollow and bitter. "Look at me, I'm shaking. Some legend, huh?"

I clenched my hands tight around the .357, trying to suck every shred of strength from the steel before I turned my head to look at her. Her exhaustion was written plainly on her face, but her eyes brimmed with sorrow and resigned terror.

"You must be pretty disappointed."

The light filtering through the curtains cast half of her in shadow, but left a spark in her eyes. In that spark, I could see the fire that had burned me when she had tried to fight me so long ago in the car, I could hear the defiant roar as she had tried to shout her way out of destiny.

"No. I'm not."

And I could see her image slowly being consumed by fire, out of reach, and I felt like I was loosing her all over again.

She took a shaky breath, then tried to look me in the eye. "Kyle, the women in your time ... what are they like?"

I didn't know how to answer that one, really. The truth was too dangerous, too risky. I felt my strength waver again at the thought of it, and I tried to fall back on something ambiguous. "Good fighters." A feeble attempt, and I regretted it.

She didn't buy it. "That's not what I meant." Her voice grew small, innocent in ways I could never imagine. "Was there ever someone special?"

"Someone?" I had to try an evasion. I couldn't say it. I begged that she would let it drop. My hands were shaking again.

"A girl. You know."

And I did it. I lied. From somewhere deep within, I hauled the despicable word to my lips. "No." The second the word split the silence, my guilt rushed up to take its place, screaming the truth like a torrent. I looked away, anywhere but at her stricken face. The lie had stripped me of the right. "Never."

"Never? I'm sorry." The tears were in her broken voice, in the way she reached out a trembling hand to trace my scars. "I'm so sorry. So much pain."

I felt my will crumbling, weakened by the lie and the guilt and the feather- light touch that burned worse than any brand. I tried to hide it, tried to pull together that wall that life had built around me, but I could feel my voice betraying my words. It made the words sound alien. "Pain can be controlled. You just disconnect it." Another lie. I'd tried that ... and I had failed.

"So you feel nothing?"

Walls crumbled to dust. Willpower barely survived. I bit my lip for a long moment before I dared to speak again. Again, I saw her solemn face fade and blacken in the fire before I could save it, felt the loss that had torn my heart, and then felt her touch on my ravaged skin.

Here.

Now.

Risk be damned. Lies were useless. I wouldn't ... couldn't lie to her again, even if it meant my death. "John gave me a picture of you once. I didn't know why at the time. It was very old. Torn ... faded ... You were young, like you are now. You seemed just ... a little sad. I always used to wonder what you were thinking at that moment." The truth was choking me as it was set free. I felt my mouth shaking with my voice as my will flickered down. Closing my eyes, I let my fingers move of their own accord, ghosting the curve of her cheek without touching it, moving by a memory that had become dream over the years. "I memorized every line ... every curve ..." My eyes opened again, meeting a face that shone with tears in the moonlight. To lose her again ... "I came across time for you, Sarah. I love you. I always have."

I knew those words meant my death. My death for another life ... for his life.

There had never been a girl, only a ghost that had kept me breathing in all those nights of hiding and pain and hopeless exhaustion. There had only been the slip of hope nestled near my heart, the mysterious Madonna that I had been entrusted with. There was no girl. It had always been Sarah.

I had to get away. I had to distract myself from the face that was frozen with the echo of the truth. I went to the table, busying my shaking hands by packing pipe bombs into the empty duffel, slamming them into the fabric with more force than necessary. I tried to focus my anger into rebuilding my wall, into bracing the willpower that had come so close to failing. I heard her follow me, tried to ignore her, tried to brush it off, tried to banish the haunting image of her pleading eyes. "I shouldn't have said that."

Then her hands were on my face, pulling me away from my soldier's mask. I tried to keep my eyes away from her tears, tried to shut my roiling emotions down into some dark corner where they could never hurt her again, tried to ...

And then she kissed me.

Her lips were silk on stone, clumsy and innocent and desperate, filled with more truth than any spoken word. This was my dream made flesh, my nightmare that had haunted me since I stepped into that blinding whiteness that had sent me here. The flicker of doubt ... of hope ... that had birthed itself in me upon the sight of John's face as I stepped forward before he could ask. This was Fate's reward for my sacrifice. To know that she was mine ... here and now ...

There was one perfect moment, an exchange within an instant of a glance that communicated more than I could ever hope to say. And I saw Sarah, my beloved Sarah ... my Sarah ...

And willpower was thrown to the winds.

I didn't care if my fingers left marks as I crushed her against me. Our kiss was a frantic clash of lips, tender and terrified and hungry all at once. I was a dying man . a dead man in the presence of his goddess, desperate for a shred of heaven from a life of hell. My bandaged hand ached as it locked itself within the waves, the other burned its way under the back of her shirt, learning the contours that the photograph had never revealed. I tasted tears. Suddenly we were both staggering, falling against the hotel room's rickety fridge and sliding to the floor.

This was Fate, screaming its dominance. This was the whirlpool of time that I couldn't stop if I cared. This was my gift and my sentence, my life and my death ...

I had never been more terrified, nor more at peace.

In my world, there was nothing so beautiful as this naked angel beneath me on the bed. She was untouched by the starvation of the soul that one succumbs to in the shadows of what I had seen. There were no traces of ashes or dust on her skin, no scars that stole her innocence and left shadows of pain in her eyes. Her lips and fingers traced my faded burns and wounds into oblivion, leaving me shaking with the need of her healing touch. My lips fell from her mouth to her throat, letting long-buried instinct guide my trembling hands over the slopes of her breasts, every shuddering breath stoking a fire that I thought could never burn. Sensation became a blur, conscious thought abandoning everything but the need to keep breathing, keep moving, keep living ...

Again and again, I whispered the truth into her skin, knowing that her silence meant the same as mine had, back at the window. She knew. She wanted to lie, to tell me that we were free from Fate, that the war was over before it had even began. She stayed silent. Instead, she reached for my hand, prying it from its death-grip on the sheet by her head and taking it in her own. I was torn between the touch of my only lifeline and my failing grip on sanity. She clenched back, promising.

No Fate.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I began to lose care. Death and fear melted aside, leaving only the truth. There was only Sarah, only the taste of her gasps in my mouth, only the moonlight on her face as she cried out with me, only this precious moment of pain-birthed pleasure that would never die.  



End file.
